I
Venezuela:
Highs and
Lows in the
Andes
Story and photos by Willie Weir
negotiated the heavy afternoon
traffic in the Venezuelan city
of Barquisimeto. I dodged and
swerved through an exhaust-laden
living museum of American cars
— Dodge Darts, Chevy Impalas, Plymouth
Belvederes, Chrysler LeBarons. Have you
ever wondered what happened to your
family’s old station wagon? Instead of ending up in the junkyard, it just may have
made its way to Venezuela, where it is living out its life as a taxi.
This was the sixth time I had pedaled
this same route from our hotel to a business
district two miles away. I was shopping for
cash.
Unlike Colombia, where obtaining needed funds was as simple as heading to a
bank machine, dealing with Venezuela’s
current monetary system was akin to spinning a giant roulette wheel.
President Hugo Chavez has set an artificially high exchange rate for the peso. The
official rate was 2,000 pesos to the dollar. Yet
the black market was trading at almost double that amount. Arrive in Venezuela with
only credit and ATM cards and you will
have a very expensive trip. We had stashed
cash in several places throughout our panniers and inside the frames of our bikes.
But trading on the black market comes
with a risk. I don’t like to make a habit of
handing over a thousand dollars in cash
to a stranger on a street corner. I wanted
to deal with someone I could trust, in
an establishment with a good reputation
around the world … a bike shop.
While fixing a flat on the edge of the
city a cyclist stopped to help us. He told
us that the owner of the best bike shop in
town often purchased dollars.
First trip to the shop, the owner wasn’t
around. I was to come back later. Next time
around, he was too busy. Third time wasn’t
the charm as he decided he wouldn’t be
buying dollars that day.
He put me in touch with a small print
shop, run by an avid ex-bike racer. The old
man had bike frames hanging all over the
shop and the shelves were stuffed with old
bike trophies and medals.
He didn’t have enough pesos to trade,
but if I came back later, a friend’s sister
needed dollars ….
When I arrived again at 2 p.m, the
answer was no. Back to the bike shop to
try my luck again. One of the customers
took out his cell phone and called a friend
who ran a restaurant. “Come back in about
an hour.”
I did and we entered the restaurant
together. After meeting the owner and having an obligatory cup of coffee, we went
into the back room, away from the prying
eyes of his customers.
I exited with 42,000 pesos.
It had been a long day, but I returned
to our hotel room having doubled our purchasing power.
Barquisimeto (elevation 2,000 feet) is
Venezuela’s fourth largest city — a flat,
sprawling metropolis at the foot of the
northernmost portion of the Andes. As difficult as the cycling might be, my wife Kat
and I are always drawn to the mountains.
We pedaled out of the city on a hot,
sunny day. We were the only cyclists on a
lonely new bike path.
My time at the bike shop had provided
a connection in the small town of Guarico,
a day’s ride out. The man at the address we
had been given whipped out his cell phone
and called a couple of small hotels. Due to
Semana Santa (Easter week), there were no
Nuts & Bolts: Venezuela
Maps: Good maps are not easily
and finding a repu-
found in Venezuela.
table business or
Berndtson and Berndtson or
person who is will-
International Travel Maps both
ing
produce a serviceable map of
with you at the black
to
exchange
Venezuela (scale 1: 1,750,000).
market rate is tricky. (It’s
Check out www.maps.com or
not called the black market
mapsguidesandmore.com.
for nothing.) Spread your risk
around by exchanging with more than
one entity.
If the stress of
MAP: KEVIN McMANIGAL
carrying cash and
exchanging on the
black market is too
much for you, travel
with an ATM card
and
double
the
Money: Credit and ATM cards
amount of money in your budget
main travel hub. You’ll find, though,
Colombia will enter Venezuela at
are the choice of most travelers
for food and lodging.
that most cyclists, climbers, and
San Antonio del Táchira (across
adventure travelers will base
from Cucutá in Colombia).
these days. There is less risk
and exchange rates are often
Getting There: Caracas is the
themselves out of Mérida in the
as good or better than cash. Not
largest city in Venezuela and the
Andes. Most cyclists coming from
Visa: Not needed for most travel-
so in Venezuela. Cash is king. If
ers. A free ninety-day tourist card
you decide to travel Venezuela
is issued on arrival.
with a credit card or ATM only,
get ready for an expensive trip.
Lodging: There are budget and
The exchange rate is fixed by the
midrange hotels in most towns.
government and there is a thriv-
Campgrounds are rare, but using
ing and healthy black market for
a tent is definitely an option.
U.S. dollars. Cash will often get
Check out www.worldtravelguide.
you close to twice the rate as a
net/country/300/accommoda
bankcard.
tion/South-America/Venezuela.
html.
But with the reward comes
the risk. Exchanging your cash
with strangers is not a sure thing
style roasted pig.
We left Guarico the next morning after
a breakfast of spicy stuffed arepas and coffee. From here on out, our journey would
be a roller coaster of climbs and descents
through mountain towns and villages. Not
a minute would go by without a reminder
of the recent national vote to reform the
constitution. These reforms would allow
Chavez to remain president indefinitely.
“Sí” for Chavez and the reforms. “No” to
Chavez and his government.
They came in the form of billboards,
placards, posters, murals, and stencils. But
slogans were also spray-painted across
walls, fences, houses, and the road. No surface was safe from this national debate.
And although the vote had already
occurred (no 51%, sí 49%), the signs of it,
like some national graffiti war, will live on
for years.
I believe that lonely, scenic, winding
mountain roads are why the bicycle was
created. Slowly pedaling up or swiftly
coasting down these ribbons of beauty
are why I’ll pedal a bicycle until my body
finally gives out.
One of these gems is the old road to
Trujillo. As its name suggests, another road
(shorter and faster) has been built, leaving
the old road virtually empty for travelers
who discover it.
We left Boconó, a bustling town of
50,000 at the magical elevation of 4,000
feet. (We discovered that in the Andes,
4,000 feet in elevation gets you springlike
weather all year ‘round). We pedaled up
to 6,000 feet where the old road spins off.
The road slowly switches back and forth
until you arrive at the summit at 8,200 feet.
The clouds and mist were rolling in, so we
made camp.
We were sitting outside our tent in the
eerie, misty silence when suddenly a swift
shot over our heads, riding the wind current at what had to be 70 miles per hour.
world’s largest Virgin Mary. This 150-foottall concrete statue is actually perched on
a nearby mountaintop and looms over the
town. Visitors climb up the stairs inside the
statue and peer out her eyes.
Due to the holiday weekend, once again
there were no rooms to be found. But a
Andean climb. Willie rides a Venezuelan roller-coaster road near the town of La Quebrada.
That was just the beginning of the evening’s entertainment as dozens of swifts
zipped just above our heads. Farther up in
the sky we saw the shapes of vultures as
they fought the wind current, flying in the
opposite direction.
We woke up the next morning and began
a slow, glorious descent, winding though
forest and farmland as we descended to
Trujillo (elevation 2,400 ft) — home of the
man who ran a guesthouse outside of town
spotted us searching, threw our bikes in
the back of his truck, and gave us a ride to
his roadside inn.
In the Andes, what comes down must go
back up and down and up again. We climbed
up to 6,000 feet and back down to 4,000, up
to 7,000 and back down to 2,000 feet.
Now that we were warmed up, it was
time for the big one — a long gradual climb
FLY BIKEFRIDAY.C OM
rooms available. He called a friend and got
his permission for us to stay at their farm. A
group of ten boys was assigned to guide us.
After a stop at the local bakery for some
snacks (and cookies for our guides), we
pedaled up out of town and onto a steep
dirt road. It was laughably steep. We both
let out loud screams of effort, but were
soon defeated by the forces of gravity. But
we had ten spare engines for our bikes, and
the boys helped us push. We all arrived at
the top, sweating and giggling.
Our host, Jorge, arrived soon after and
offered us a room in the house. But our tent
was already set up with a stunning view
of the mountains and valley below. Jorge’s
grandfather had arrived in Venezuela as a
poor immigrant from the Canary Islands.
He made his fortune as a potato farmer in
the same fields that Jorge farms today.
But Jorge’s passion is now mountain biking and he is the leader of one the most active
mountain-bike clubs in the country. As fortune would have it, their annual bike race up
the mountain was the next morning.
Now I’m tempted to tell you that we
22 adventure cyclist january 200 9 adventurecycling. org
immediately signed up for the race, jettisoned our panniers, and shot up the mountain and onto the winner’s podium.
That would be fiction. We are travelers,
not racers.
In reality, we happily took the day off
and helped at a water stop 5 kilometers
from the finish line.
We lined up along the side of the road,
the surrounding trees drenched in orchids,
and passed off bags of water to the exhausted and exuberant entrants as they sped by.
Then it was back to Jorge’s for a Cuban-
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Barquisimeto. A pedestrian mall in the sprawling city at the foot of the Andes.
to Paso del Cóndor at over 13,000 feet. It’s
the highest road in Venezuela.
We pedaled though small towns and
farms growing peppers, onions, coffee,
roses, and artichokes. We asked permission
to camp from a tiny woman in her eighties
wearing a cowboy hat. She was still tending her little farm.
An icy, crystal-clear stream ran by our
tent and we slept in, waiting for the warmth
of the sun.
The road wound past the treeline where
the light turned a steel blue and the smallest
breeze stung. We arrived at the summit and
quickly put every other piece of clothing
on that we had in our panniers. We sipped
bowls of hot chocolate at a little café and
warmed up for our descent toward Mérida.
Mérida is the center of adventure sports in
Venezuela. Many travelers use it as a hopping-off point for trips all over the country.
There are hosts of companies that will take
you hiking, diving, paragliding, canyoning,
mountain biking, or fishing. Kat and I signed
24 adventure cyclist january 200 9 adventurecycling. org
up for a jeep trip to Los Llanos (the plains of
Venezuela). The four-day journey allowed
us to see a part of Venezuela and its wildlife
(anacondas, scarlet ibis, piranhas, anteaters,
freshwater dolphins) that we wouldn’t have
seen otherwise.
There are two things you shouldn’t miss
while in Mérida. First is the teleférico, the
world’s longest and highest cable-car system. It runs for more than seven miles and
climbs from 5,200 feet to over 15,600 feet.
It was a delight to ascend over 10,000 feet
with nary a pain in our quads. The view
and the altitude will leave you gasping.
The other (and as a dedicated touring
cyclist, the most important for me) is a trip
to Heladería Coromoto — the ice cream
parlor in the Guinness Book of World
Records for the most ice cream flavors (over
900). On our first visit, Kat and I shared a
bowl of avocado and tomato ice cream — it
was to die for.
Several rest days and bowls of ice
cream later, we were ready to get back
on the mountain roads and pedal toward
Colombia. Even with the stunning beauty
of the Andes and the hospitality of many
of the individuals we met, we both left
Venezuela conflicted. And my main reason
may sound bizarre coming from a traveler
pedaling a bicycle … the cost of gasoline.
There’s a reason you find so many old,
gas-guzzling American cars in Venezuela.
Gas is free. Well, almost. It’s literally cheaper than water. It runs around 7 to 15 cents
a gallon. Venezuela is the fourth largest producer of oil in the world, most of it pumped
out from beneath Lake Maracaibo.
Cheap oil comes at a high
civic price. People drive
everywhere. It is literally cheaper for a
group of kids to
drive around
in their car
all day than
it is to buy a
soda or cup
of coffee. The
central town
parks, which
are thriving,
vital centers of daily life
in so many Latin American countries are
often empty.
Old beater cars, spewing large black
clouds of exhaust, are held together with
hose-clamps and duct tape. Small pyramids
of oil for sale are stacked up alongside the
road. Old, leaky car engines need to be
topped off several times a day.
Bicycles are a rarity in the car-dominated culture of Venezuela. Other than
athletes, we rarely saw someone on a bike,
contrast that with Colombia (gas runs about
$4 per gallon) where we often cycled right
alongside locals pedaling to work or to the
store.
The folks we met in Guarico are an
exception, and I hope their dream to bring
cycling to Venezuela is a grand success. But
it will be a steep uphill battle. A bicycle is a
hard sell in the land of free gasoline.
Venezuela also suffers from a problem
it shares with many countries — litter.
I have never traveled in such a beautiful
country surrounded by so much litter. We
joked that the tourism slogan should be
“Venezuela: Don’t look too closely.” But it
didn’t bring much laughter.
There are many other reasons that
Venezuela as a whole didn’t enchant us.
We met several other travelers who felt the
same way.
As a traveler it is hard to have negative
feelings toward a country that you are
visiting. It’s like a blind date gone sour.
Sometimes the chemistry just isn’t there, no
matter how hard you try.
Although the downsides of Venezuela
as a cycling destination put it far down
the list of places we’d like to revisit,
our memories will always return
to the exceptional people
we met along the
way and to
those perfect
mountain
roads that
define
bicycle
bliss.
Willie Weir
shares his bicycle-travel
experiences at venues around
North America. More information about Willie
and his programs can be found at www.willie
weir.com.
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adventure cyclist january 200 9 adventurecycling.org
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